Mormonish stories from Peck tap into the subtexts of our faith

A while back, Steven L. Peck, a biology professor at Brigham Young University, wrote “A Short Stay in Hell.” It was a fascinating piece of Mormonish fantasy, with a protagonist sent to hell after being assuaged of fears of burning lakes and pitchforks. The hell he eventually becomes resigned to, however, proves to be more soul-decaying than anything envisioned in the Old Testament or by Middle-Ages artists.

Peck has a spare, to-the-point writing style, with strong dialogue that engages dilemmas. Through plot and the personal motivations of characters, the dilemmas sometimes find surprisingly simple solutions. The determination of the narrator or main characters, is ultimately rewarded.

Peck has also published a collection, “Wandering Realities: The Mormonish Short Fiction of Steven L. Peck,” published by the outstanding Mormon-themed house, Zarahemla Books. (zarahemlabooks.com) The short fiction is a mixture of LDS-themed science fiction, fantasy and the contemporary. I wasn’t disappointed by any of the fiction, which varies from a few pages to long stories.  

A top offering of the science fiction and fantasy is “Avek, Who Is Distributed,” in which Elder Windle is faced with telling Avek the discouraging news that church leaders have decided that distributed AIs cannot be baptized. As Windle tells Avek, “You must understand. The difficulty is that your intelligence is distributed across three planets in thousands of computational nodes ...”

Avek responds, “And yet I am one thing. A unique individual. Someone that thinks singly. Someone who can feel. Who longs for things. ...”

In the story, “AIs” have long been baptized, with questions of gender long settled. Elder Windle, and church leaders eventually reach a decision that allows a measure of achievement and relief for all him and Avek.

An excellent contemporary short story is “Bishop, Banker, Grocery, Fry,” in which our protagonist bishop is visited by the wife of an active family, a picture-postcard LDS family. Like an attentive spouse, she knows something is amiss with her husband, that there’s a unsettling change in their life. She’s unaware of what it is, and he’s not telling her,

The bishop goes undercover for a day, following the husband through a workday. The very first clue that the wife’s suspicions are on target is that the husband’s career job, the bank, is not on his agenda. Instead they make stops at a grocery and a small restaurant.

The resolution of this tale will resonate with very overwhelmed, working-too-hard career parents who wonders if it’s worth it.

“Wandering Realities” contains the elite of short Mormon fiction. Besides great tales, it enriches the reader with a diverse look at Mormon culture and sentiments. It’s a good deal via Kindle at $4.99 as well.

-- Doug Gibson

--- Originally published in StandardNET

Orson Pratt was Mormonism’s first intellectual

Originally published at StandardNET in 2011.

In the 19th century, for many in the East Coast of the United States, Brigham Young may have been the image they saw when they thought of Mormonism, but the ideas they heard coming from the new religion came mostly from the Apostle Orson Pratt.

That’s a conclusion reached by Top of Utah author Breck England, in his still-important biography of Pratt, “The Life and Thought of Orson Pratt.” The book was published in 1985 by University of Utah Press. I picked up a copy at a local library and was fascinated by Pratt, who was considered a rationalist thinker who often clashed with President Brigham Young, who preferred a more “meat and potatoes” interpretation of the Gospel.

Pratt, the brother of the more flamboyant Parley, lifted himself out of poverty to become Mormonism’s top intellectual. He was blessed with an amazing brain. He authored an unpublished textbook on calculus and penned a text on algebra that was cited by academics of the era. He was responsible for creating an odometer that could accurately log miles accumulated by wagon trains. He was instrumental in mapping the Salt Lake valley after the pioneers arrived. In fact, England notes that the parcel allotted to Pratt is today prime commercial real estate just south of Temple Square.

One can speculate that Pratt’s natural interest in science attracted him to follow Joseph Smith. Later in his ministry he developed the intelligence-matter theory, inspired by Joseph Smith’s teachings. The theology of endless worlds and gods progressing in eternity was manna to Pratt’s mind, and he was a fervent advocate of it his whole life.

Early in the his church membership, Pratt almost left Mormonism. The first was over a bank failure. The second was more serious and led to a short excommunication of Pratt and his wife. While he was away preaching, allegations were made in Nauvoo of impropriety between Smith, his associate John C. Bennett, and Pratt’s wife Sarah. Sarah Pratt claimed that Smith had asked her to be a plural wife. Smith claimed Sarah had had an affair with Bennett. 

Pratt initially sided with his wife. Eventually, Pratt and Sarah returned to fellowship in the young church and Bennett was excommunicated. He later became a prominent enemy of the church.

It is impossible to know what really happened, but apparently the bad feelings and scars never subsided. Years later, the Pratts separated and Sarah became an enthusiastic enemy of the LDS church, teaching her children to hate it.

Pratt’s excommunication reversed his placement in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and likely prevented him from becoming church president. For the rest of his life, he was a vigorous defender of Mormonism, the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. He was often called to Europe to lead missions and church publications. While in Germany he denounced that nation’s refusal to allow any religions besides Catholicism a chance. Pratt also translated the Book of Mormon into the church-created phonetic language Deseret.

Late in his life, Pratt was more mellow and less eager to explore unique looks into Mormonism or Christian theology. This was probably in large part due to Young and other apostles publicly denouncing some of Pratt’s ideas. In fact, some of his books were hunted down and destroyed by church leaders. 

Pratt accepted these rebukes humbly and urged church members to ignore his writings that were condemned by Young. Perhaps the Nauvoo battle, with his near expulsion from the church and failed marriage had worn him down and he wanted peace. Or, perhaps he truly believed his painstaking research was now a detriment to the church.

According to Breck, Pratt left a legacy of philosophy to Mormonism. His belief in an energy of one and many attempts to rationalize science and theology have been explored countless times since his death.

-- Doug Gibson

Polygamy was no Mormon harem, but it tore at marriages and hearts

(Originally published at StandardNET in 2011)

I spent some time re-reading the late Richard S. Van Wagoner’s excellent book, “Mormon Polygamy: A History.” The 19th century tales of harems and never-ending teenage-girl hunting were, of course, lies to excite Eastern U.S. readers. Polygamy was a contradictory doctrine, and extremely dysfunctional. Brigham Young once said that he wished it wasn’t a doctrine, but later also raged that those who disbelieved in polygamy — and even monogomous LDS men — were in danger of damnation. And polygamy led to divorce among LDS elite leaders in numbers that would shock today. According to Van Wagoner, more than 50 marriages of LDS leaders ended in divorce in the mid 19th century.

Indeed, two early wives of LDS apostle brothers, Orson and Parley Pratt, gave their husbands the heave-ho for their enthusiastic embrace of polygamy, and for marrying young, teenage brides. And not every faithful LDS elder with a feisty wife was brave enough to try polygamy. Van Wagoner recounts the tale of one husband who abandoned plans to take a plural wife after his wife informed him that she had received a revelation from God directing her to shoot any spare wife who darkened the family doorstep.

As Van Wagoner writes, though, there was a somber paradox to polygamy, particularly for faithful LDS women who reluctantly embraced the doctrine as a commandment of God yet suffered personal heartache and financial pain due to their husband’s extracurricular wives. Emmeline Blanche Wells, early Mormon women’s leader and feminist, wrote publicly that polygamy “gives women the highest opportunities for self-development, exercise of judgment, and arouses latent faculties, making them truly cultivated in the actual realities of life, more independent in thought and mind, noble and unselfish.” In her private journal, though, Wells despaired of how polygamy had robbed her of the love of her husband, Daniel H. Wells, member of the church’s first presidency.

Emmeline wrote, “O, if my husband could only love me even a little and not seem to be perfectly indifferent to any sensation of that kind. He cannot know the cravings of my nature; he is surrounded with love on every side, and I am cast out.”

“He is surrounded with love on every side, and I am cast out,” is an appropriate indictment of polygamy, and no doubt a reason that it has long been discarded by the LDS Church.

As Van Wagoner recalls, another LDS women leader, physician Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, the first female state senator in the U.S., yearned in her personal letters for one husband who would be hers only to cherish. Despite these yearnings, she clung to her LDS faith in “the Principle.” Martha wrote her husband, Angus, that only her divine knowledge of the sacred principle of plural marriage made it bearable to endure. Nevertheless, Martha also wrote this scolding to Angus: “How do you think I feel when I meet you driving another plural wife about in a glittering carriage in broad day light? (I) am entirely out of money ...” 

For Emmeline Wells, there was a sort of happy ending that was denied many others. As Van Wagoner recounts, in his final years, her frail and aging husband, Daniel, seeking tender care and companionship, returned to Emmeline’s home and side, after mostly ignoring her for 40 years. In her eyes, that probably counted as a blessing due after decades of suffering.

Despite lurid tales and even the teenage bride races, sex was a distant reason for polygamy. It was the result of an odd doctrine, now mostly forgotten in the LDS Church, that taught that the more wives and children one accumulated on earth would increase one’s post-life eternal influence and kingdoms. Yet, one will rarely hear that explanation today.

-- Doug Gibson

Charles Shuster Zane was a fair judge Mormons loved to hate

Ever heard of Utah territorial Chief Justice Charles Shuster Zane? He’s one of those fascinating footnotes in history. Appointed in 1884 to administer justice in Utah, the New Jersey Quaker was a respected Illinois lawyer who rubbed shoulders in the same circles that Abraham Lincoln inhabited. Zane was a circuit judge when appointed to the Utah bench by President Chester A. Arthur. 

His tenure was stormy. The dominant Latter-day Saints disliked Zane because he thoroughly enforced the laws against polygamy. He imprisoned men and polygamous wives that he discovered were living “the Principle.” Zane also was heard to publicly proclaim polygamy an abomination. The judge was enforcing the Edmunds law, which was designed to go after Utah Mormons on the polygamy issue. 

According to an article on Zane in the fall 1966 issue of Utah Historical Quarterly, then-BYU professor Thomas G. Alexander cited the following negative assessment of Zane from LDS historians B.H. Roberts and Orson F. Whitney: “Judge Zane ... will stand classed ... in that history as sharing in responsibility for the cruelty and injustice of that regime, which marks the saddest period of Utah’s history. ... Judge Zane never divorced himself from his deepseated prejudice and vindictiveness against ... [the Mormon] offenders and their religious faith, ... his object was the overthrow of Mormonism as a religion.”

Those are harsh words, and they come from Roberts’ “Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” and Whitney’s “History of Utah.” But they’re also not true. In his Utah Historical Quarterly article, Alexander takes a long look at Zane’s judicial philosophy while in Utah, and discovers a tough but fair judge who was scrupulously following the law. In other words, Zane was not the judicial activist many Mormons had hoped would look the other way at laws designed to hamper their religious beliefs.

In fact, Zane made many lower-profile decisions that helped the Mormon church, which was constantly facing nuisance lawsuits from the energetic anti-Mormon “gentile” faction of Utah, which had as its mouthpiece “The Salt Lake Tribune.” For example, Zane ruled in favor of local, Mormon public schools receiving tax monies, rejecting lawsuits that they sectarian schools that taught treason. Zane was a big believer in public education, and the rights of local communities to make educational decisions. 

Also, Zane resisted efforts by gentiles in Utah to swing elections through malicious efforts. He sided with the People’s Party, an LDS party, in its accusation that members of the gentile Liberal Party had tried to stuff ballots in an 1890 school election. In fact, Zane even allowed, over gentile objections, voting by Mormon men who had engaged in obviously sham “spiritual divorces” from their polygamous wives. That shows a lot of tolerance for the Mormon religious mores.

In fact, when Zane finally jailed men and polygamous wives, it was only after every effort to prosecute, or resolve, the situation, had been attempted. There’s no doubt that Zane’s judicial decrees ailed many prominent Utah Mormons. Zane had the — perhaps — misfortune of assuming the bench when enforcement of the anti-polygamy laws was at its most intense. And he was determined to obey the letter of the law. Alexander adds that whenever a guilty plea came in, Zane was likely to fine, rather than jail the polygamist.

Another ruling, disliked by the LDS majority, was Zane’s decision to allow lawyers to question Mormons on naturalization, or citizenship, protests. As Alexander notes, this was a big issue as the Mormons were energetic missionaries overseas and the converts migrated to Utah. However, Zane did offer the Mormons an olive branch by requiring that the district attorney question prospective citizens, rather than anti-Mormon lawyers, explains Alexander.

After the 1890 Manifesto against polygamy, Zane’s attitude on the practice became more relaxed. Alexander recounts that he accepted the promise by LDS Church President Wilford W. Woodruff and later published an article in Forum magazine where he stated, according to Alexander, “that the Mormon problem (polygamy) was at an end because the Mormons had resolved to obey the law.”

The tenure of Zane was an example of a judge diligently following the law in a rugged, still frontier-like territory and angering both sides. Because the high-profile cases went against the majority Mormons, he was vilified long after his death in 1915. It would be fascinating to read a more in-depth look at his tenure as Utah territory’s chief justice.

--- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardNET

Review: The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South

In “The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South,” (Oxford University Press, 2011), author Patrick Q. Mason discovers a unique irony to the persistent abuse, violent and otherwise, that Mormons faced in the southern United States the last quarter of the 19th century. It is that the shared animosity toward the LDS Church between the U.S. government and the deep South helped restore southern allegiance to the federal government.


As Mason explains, that wasn’t always the case. A score of years earlier, the South, headed for a Civil War, had sympathized with the exiled Saints’ grudge against the feds and secular government in general. The cause of the South’s animosity was the Mormons’ admittance that polygamy was practiced and its subsequent defense of a practice that appalled the rest of the nation. 

Add Reconstruction, and cultural mores that included tolerance — and even acceptance — of vigilantism if it was deemed to uphold decency and respect for womanhood, and the result was persecution, sometimes deadly, of missionaries in the Southern States Mission.

Examples of violence in “The Mormon Menace” include the murder of Elder Joseph Standing, shot to death by mobsters who assaulted Standing and his companion, future LDS apostle Rudger Clawson, in Varnell, Ga., on July 21, 1879. It’s possible Standing might have avoided being killed had he not grabbed a rifle from one of his guards. That led to subsequent gunfire. In any event, no one was convicted of the murder, a common result that deserves more explanation.

As evil as it is to murder, rob, vandalize and drive persons forcibly from their homes, the Southern mobsters, Mason writes, saw themselves as a local law enforcement that needed to protect communities when other government entities, not bound to enforcing moral law, failed to offer protection. The Southern code of womanhood, which saw them as a weaker sex to be protected, was outraged by the LDS practice of polygamy, which was depicted nationwide — except in LDS periodicals — as virtual forced sexual slavery for women and teenage girls. 

While newspapers in larger Southern cities and more sophisticated communities might decry violence against Mormons, they loathed the LDS Church as much as the mobsters did. This is important to understand because so few Mormons today are aware of how unpopular the church was in the last two-fifths of the 19th century. The LDS Church was an easy target for media and pols to whip into a frenzy of righteous indignation. The church also suffered a string of legislative and court losses in regards to polygamy that eventually forced it to abandon the practice, “officially” in 1890, and effectively 15 years later.

Another major violent attack against the Mormons was the Cane Creek Massacre in Cane Creek, Tenn. On Aug. 10, 1884. At a church service at the home of a church member, a mob attacked the services. Two elders and two members were killed; one member of the mob was killed. The Cane Creek killings didn’t even lead to a trial, and not long after the massacre, the remaining Mormons, as well as non-LDS sympathizers, were hounded from the area. Mason adds that post-massacre danger was so high that Mormon general authority, B.H. Roberts, recruited to bring back the bodies of slain missionaries, John Gibbs and William Berry, entered Cane Creek disguised as a hobo.

In other words, the violence that stemmed from this religious persecution did not lead to remorse or a cooling of passions. The code behind it — whether theological, protecting women, or both — only served to animate the mobs. Protestant ministers, particularly in rural parishes, as well as small newspapers, overtly egged the mobsters on.

There is another irony to the LDS Church’s efforts in the South that led to more danger for missionaries. The most dangerous areas for LDS missionaries were rural, backwoods areas and small towns; however, those areas were also where the missionaries had the most success. Larger towns and southern cities were more tolerant of the missionaries but mostly ignored their message. The missionaries literally had to enter the danger zone to baptize.

Whipping, expulsions, vandalism, threats were preferred forms of intimidation. Summer, with its heat, logged the highest amounts of violence and abuse; winter the lowest. Mason notes that the summer, winter variance also occurred with vigilante violence on blacks. Also, times of economic distress that reached the South also saw increases in violence.

Mason points out that the persecution did not stop the growth of the LDS Church in the South. This frustrated other sects, particularly protestant evangelicals. What the mobs failed to understand is that the violence suffered by missionaries and members helped solidify a persecution narrative that the Utah LDS Church had been building for generations, since its members were expelled from Missouri, and Illinois. Those killed in Southern missions were hailed as martyrs alongside Joseph Smith and even Jesus Christ. The Saints were assured that a just God would harshly punish those who avoided earthly consequences. The church-owned Deseret News published reports from returned missionaries. Those who had suffered persecution were provided far more news space than those returned missionaries who had more tranquil missions.

In short, Mason explains another irony: that the persecution suffered in the South by the LDS Church, far from harming the church, instead strengthened it and prepared it for a 20th century in which it would grow into a multi-million-member, powerful, non-polygamous institution.

Notes

Perhaps the first major example of Southern violence directed against the LDS Church was the antebellum murder of Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt by a cuckolded husband, Hector McLean, who literally chased Pratt across the nation before catching him in Arkansas and killing him. 

McLean, who made no secret of his intention to kill Pratt, was driven to murder as a form of vigilante retaliation for Pratt taking his wife as a plural bride. History has shown McLean was a drunkard and a wife-beater, but his method of retribution against Pratt was normal for those times, and condoned by many in the media.

According to Mason, there were three strategies to combat Mormonism used by Southerners opposed to the church’s influence. The first was vigilante violence. The second was fierce condemnation from other churches’ pulpits. A few southern pastors wrote best-selling, very hyperbolic tomes against Mormonism. The third tactic, used mostly by more sophisticated southerners, was to rely on legislation, both state and national, that would prevent LDS influence. In some southern states, attempts were made to stop missionaries who promoted polygamy. That usually didn’t work as Mormon missionaries, with few exceptions, were the opposite of the lewd, women-hungry lechers that anti-Mormons regularly portrayed them as.

--- Doug Gibson

Originally published at StandardNET.

Mormonism and Dime Novels; pulp fiction and the culture of those times

Review by Doug Gibson

I really enjoy the Mormon-themed book offerings from Greg Kofford Books. They are often edgy, grizzly-bear history lessons. The Mormon Image in Literature book series provides reprints of pulp fiction (albeit to be fairly well written) from the 18th century and early 19th century. Besides melodramatic, thrilling tales, the series offers contemporary readers a glimpse into how the popular culture of those times viewed Mormonism in its chaotic youth. On this blog we have reviewed a book in the series, The Mormoness.

The latest series is titled Dime Novel Mormons, a collection of four novellas that sold many, many copies nationwide for no more than a dime, or even a nickel. Four novellas are offered: Eagle Plume: The White Avenger. A Tale of the Mormon Trail (1870); The Doomed Dozen; Or Dolores, the Danite's Daughter (1881); Frank Merriwell Among the Mormons; Or the Lost Tribe of Israel (1897); and The Bradys Among the Mormons; Or Secret Work in Salt Lake City (1903).

The plots reflect the times. Mormons are the bad guys; rough or old men constantly on the prowl to kidnap virginal young women. Handsome young men, Mormon opponents, of course, ultimately help save the day. The plots reveal controversial topics within Mormonism. Polygamy is a given, but also the more myth than reality "Danites" vigilantes are a plot staple, as is thinly veiled episodes that recall The Mountain Meadows Massacre, or Utah territory's near deadly conflicts with the federal government, and even Reed Smoot's struggle to be a U.S. Congressman 100-plus years ago.

In an introduction, editors Michael Austin and Ardis E. Parshall provide an entertaining overview of the Dime Novels. Advances in printing in the mid 19th century moved books from luxury-item status to a ubiquitous item. Fifteen thousand- to 30,000-word action novels, heavy on dialogue, action, stereotypes, hyperbole, danger and prejudices, won over the general populace. They were cheap, satisfying diversions, printed in tiny type on newsprint. Multiple scores of thousands were printed over generations.

From the introduction: "Though dime novels did a lot to promote literacy and book ownership they didn't do much for peace, love and understanding. Their narrative formulas required spectacular villains and their style guides did not allow floor depth or character development, so they turned to the most simplistic and outrageous stereotypes ..."

The novellas are extremely entertaining, even today. The best are short and to the point, lean and mean with not an ounce of exterior fat. Frank Merriwell ... was my favorite, as the protagonist, featured in a series of books, travels to a renegade fundamentalist Mormon town to rescue a young lovely from a depraved, elderly polygamist. Here's a very short snippet from Frank Merriwell where a misguided fundamentalist Mormon father prepares to place his daughter in the hands of a predatory, elderly polygamist:

"Ah, but you will discover your mistake when the good elder has made thee his wife."
"Which he shall never do, father! I refuse to become the ninth Mrs. Holdfast. Asaph Holdfast already has seven living wives and one has died. Ugh!" she cried with a shiver.

Eagle Plume ... was a great read. It's a tale of vengeance, with our protagonists traversing the western Frontier to find a dastardly Mormon who wrecked the lives of their womenfolk. It should be noted that the books portray Mormonism's sinful status as institutional; the heroes are literally combating an army division in the destroying "Danites."

The Bradys Among the Mormons ... is another series tale featuring father and son detectives. The 1903 plot of trying to save a young girl kidnapped to be married off in Salt Lake City features a rich Mormon wannabe politician (can you think Reed Smoot) and a sinister, elderly Church leader with a long white beard (think then-Prophet Joseph F. Smith.

My least favorite of the four is The Doomed Dozen ... It's not because of the plot, which features a Mountain Meadows Massacre-like slaughter on the trail led by a Mormon named John Leigh (think John D. Lee). There are virtuous young girls in peril and secret oaths, and dashing heroes sworn to stop the Mormons. Its fault is it's a little too long. There's an excess of plot and characters.

---

The stories are dialogue heavy, very descriptive, and perhaps large portions of the novellas -- depicting, for example, wagon trains, or big-city social life -- are reasonably accurate. On the other hand, as Austin and Parshall note, the writing reinforces stereotypes of the "wild West" that existed because in the closed society of those times, imagination ruled for lack of mediums that could provide tangible reality. Bigotry is found in the pages. Native Americans are slurred in Eagle Plume ..., for example, even though they are allies of our heroes. The authors are conversational themselves, occasionally offering asides to readers.

I hope Latter-day Saints are not offended by these books. They are history lessons, a reminder Mormonism's struggle to rebound from setbacks, some well-deserved, some unfair. I found myself chuckling through some passages and yes, cheering our Gentile heroes against those "evil," Mormon elders consumed with lust for the young maidens. The novellas have a kick; they grabbed readers and made a nation more literate.

When I say pulp fiction, I refer to the hasty plots and generalizations. The writing is sophisticated and talented for its time. In fact, the novels' prose reminds me in style of Parley P. Pratt's autobiography, as well as the LDS apostle's frequent polemics and other tracts, either in support of the church or in opposition to its enemies.

The Dime Novels often end a chapter in suspense. However, just a few paragraphs later and the danger has subsided until the next literary dire situation. These novellas are ancestors of film melodramas, cowboy hour-long C movies and of course, adventure movie serials.

Even today, where contemporary Dime Novels are virtually gone from bookstores, they exist in streaming services. Whether it's Stranger Things, Peaky Blinders, Bosch, etc., viewers can binge an entire season in less than 10 hours of a single day -- something that could be accomplished 150 years ago  reading one of these novellas.

'Papa Married a Mormon' a 'Mormon-loves-gentile' story

Few people really understand the fear felt by Mormons in the genesis of the faith's flight to Utah to avoid what members perceived as severe persecution in Missouri and Illinois. In the latter half of the 19th century non-Mormons, or "gentiles" were regarded as intruders in "Zion" bent on either crushing the saints or forcibly removing them from their third homeland. In “The Kingdom or Nothing,” Samuel Taylor's biography of Mormon prophet John Taylor, when settlers heard rumors of a planned U.S. military "invasion" upon the Utah territory, church settlers abandoned the new Salt Lake City and trudged south to Provo, leaving instructions to a few left behind to burn everything if the soldiers assumed command of the city.

These sentiments are nearly gone, although stronger generations ago, when Utahn John D. Fitzgerald wrote the popular novel “Papa Married a Mormon.”

Times have changed, and “Papa Married a Mormon” has been adapted to the stage many times in Utah. The novel, first published in 1955 by Prentice Hall, is easy to find at used bookstores. Two sequels followed: “Mama's Boarding House,” and “Uncle Will and the Fitzgerald Curse.”

Set in the 1880s and ’90s in the fictional southern Utah towns of Adenville and Silverlode, the most unique aspect of Fitzgerald’s novel is that only a small portion of it is true, and that’s with a healthy dose of journalistic license, no doubt. Fitzgerald is writing about his family: His Uncle Will, who leaves Pennsylvania in disgrace to seek a life as a gambler/​gunslinger; His father Tom, Sr., who obeys a deathbed wish to find Will and tracks him down, finding him a rich saloon and gambling hall owner in Silverlode, a mining town close to the Mormon settlement of Adenville, which is headed by the town’s bishop, Ephraim Aden.

Once reconciled with Will, Tom takes over the Silverlode newspaper, and gains the trust of Adenville Mormons whose subscriptions, printing and advertising provide him a means of support. All this is threatened when he meets and falls instantly in love with Tena Neilsen, the 17-year-old daughter of Mormon emigrants from Europe. After a struggle with Tena and her family, Tom wins her heart, marries her in Denver and eventually the pair return to southern Utah with Tom (and Tena) considerably less popular among the saints than they had been previously.

While the novel’s chapters feature diverse tales (there's whole chapters devoted to saloon rowdies, kids’s pranks, family genealogy, gun fights, and dog fights) in essence the rest of Fitzgerald’s novel deals with the growth of Tom and Tena's s multi-religious family in Adenville and their slow but eventual acceptance by the Mormon majority. This subject provides the most powerful writing in the novel, as Fitzgerald portrays the suffering his mother feels, outwardly as a rejected saint, and inwardly as her Mormon conscience tears at her act of rebellion in marrying a gentile.

“Papa knew that Momma’s life was very lonely. The Latter-day Saints politely ignored her because she was an apostate. They would not let her trade in Adenville; even the farmers refused to sell her eggs and vegetables. ... Two weeks before the baby was born, Papa went through a night of torture. Mama had barely spoken to him all evening. About midnight he awoke and heard Mama crying ... He put his arm around her ... Momma threw him off, ‘Don’t touch me,’ she cried piteously.”

When Tom insists that Tena explain her behavior, she admits that she doesn’t feel married to him, since Mormons are married for time and all eternity. Tom goes to Bishop Aden and asks to be baptized a Mormon. The Bishop refuses to baptize Tom to placate his wife, but marries the pair outside a temple for time and all eternity. Although this would be frowned on today, it was not unusual in 18th century Utah to conduct “time and all eternity” marriages from outside a temple or endowment house. But it was certainly unusual if the groom was a Catholic.

Papa Married a Mormon is a fun read for anyone, but also a Utah history lesson. Fitzgerald writes each chapter like a separate story, so readers can jump in anywhere. One weakness is a tendency for the author to be a bit flowery in his prose, so at times romance almost becomes farce. Also, although Fitzgerald's heart is in the right place, he exhibits a condescending attitude toward Native Americans, a vice likely widespread in 1950s literature. One more thing: The novel comes with pictures of all the family members Fitzgerald writes about. It's fun to put a face to Tom, Tena and the Fitzgerald gang.

A postscript: I did some research and discovered that the Fitzgerald lived in Price, Utah, not Southern Utah. “Papa” did marry a Mormon, but he was a local financial professional, not a journalist, and also was an elected official. Author John D. Fitzgerald lived a fascinating life, with many unique jobs. He merits a biography.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardNET.